Do You REALLY Need To Run your Genny?
Just got in from our first dry camping experience with our new camper and dual battery setup. Genny hours are 9-11 and 5-9. We actually had two family campers there and each had a 2,000W Honda genny...
Forum Discussion
I would only run my generator to recharge my battery bank if the batteries get down to around 12.0VDC which is approximately 50% charge state. If it only gets down to 66% of charge and I know it will most likely get below the 50% state of charge before I will be allowed to run my generator again due to the restrictions in place I would probably go ahead and re-charge back up to the 90% charge state..
It has been my experience if I don't recharge at the approximately 50% charge state and also do not attain at least the 90% charge state during this recharge period then when I start using the batteries again they do not have the same expected performance.
If I don't get my batteries back up to the 90% charge state each time of recharging then the worse the battery performance gets when I start using them again and eventually I start doing real harm to my batteries.
Our normal camping run using 120VAC appliances from an Inverter and other direct connected 12VDC items usually ends up consuming around 20AMPs of power drain from 8PM to 11PM hours each evening and of course a full day of maybe 1AMP additional battery drain for the trailer parasitic drains. This usually gets my 255AH battery bank down to 12.0VDC at 8AM each morning when I need to start re-charging again.
We have been very successful over the past five years using this method of recharging using the 2KW Honda generator. I am still on my same batteries that were installed in 2008 and are just now starting to show loss of performance.
My success is because I watch the battery drain very close when we are camping off the power grid.
All of this is based on my experiences...
Just passing along what we do camping off the power grid
Roy Ken
It has been my experience if I don't recharge at the approximately 50% charge state and also do not attain at least the 90% charge state during this recharge period then when I start using the batteries again they do not have the same expected performance.
If I don't get my batteries back up to the 90% charge state each time of recharging then the worse the battery performance gets when I start using them again and eventually I start doing real harm to my batteries.
Our normal camping run using 120VAC appliances from an Inverter and other direct connected 12VDC items usually ends up consuming around 20AMPs of power drain from 8PM to 11PM hours each evening and of course a full day of maybe 1AMP additional battery drain for the trailer parasitic drains. This usually gets my 255AH battery bank down to 12.0VDC at 8AM each morning when I need to start re-charging again.
We have been very successful over the past five years using this method of recharging using the 2KW Honda generator. I am still on my same batteries that were installed in 2008 and are just now starting to show loss of performance.
My success is because I watch the battery drain very close when we are camping off the power grid.
All of this is based on my experiences...
Just passing along what we do camping off the power grid
Roy Ken
